One gamer's journey through the wide world of games and gaming culture.

Let me back this up and share with you my Labor Day weekend plans. The Hub wanted to go to PAX. (If you don’t know what PAX is go read the link and come back to me) So I planned to ship him off with a friend on Sat to enjoy pure immersion into our gamer geek culture. (He only got a Sat ticket because they had already sold out of the 3 day when he ordered) Friday rolls around and Wil Wheaton is on a local morning show informing people PAX is sold out. Ah my plan to have an entire day alone and to myself is perfectly in motion.

Little did I know that my good friend who was going with the Hub was a net hawk and circling the PAX website incessantly waiting for more tickets to be released. (there was another friend they wanted to take with them) 8:30am the hub is getting the car ready to head up to Seattle; while I snuggle down in my blankets more intent to stay there until noon just because I could. Time passes (don’t ask how long I was dozing) all I do know is that the hub came into the room super excited and informed my bleary eyed self to get dressed ASAP I was going to PAX.

Wow,so the last I heard 72k people attended PAX. This numbers was thrown at me during PAX by an exhibitor so don’t trust me that it is true, but I’m sharing it none the less. Spread across 6 floors of the WA Convention Center in glorious sunny downtown Seattle! (btw it was sunny and pretty all day, managing not to rain Sat until of course when we left!) But the 6 floors really helped spread the crowd out and kept it from being too overwhelming (have I mentioned I am barely 5’4″ and crowds tend to walk over me?)

This was my first PAX and first game con (no I have never made it to Blizzcon or E3 for that matter) Let me tell you something, I am a LAZY gamer. (notice I capitalized that right and added bold for emphasis?) I’m sitting in a panel and people are talking about coming from whole other continents to go to PAX and here I am thinking “I am sooo glad this is just a 30 min drive for me!” I mean I used to live 3 hours from DragonCon and never made it out there. So while people from say Victoria, BC didn’t shock me so much. The Aussies and Danish, well they shocked me (that and I loved their accents during panel Q&A). So serious props to them for coming out to the con, you are WAY more dedicated than I am.

I attended two panels the Penny Arcade: How to Draw a Comic. Let me start by saying, Jerry aka Tycho wasn’t there because his wife gave birth to a baby that morning! And I was so proud of the gamers EVERYONE in the audience gave that collective sigh if understanding and aww baby. I sat in the back and didn’t hear a single person complain that he should be there. Mike aka Gabe had…shall we say prolonged technical difficulties with the computer to get the program up and running so we could watch him make a comic. Scott Kurtz stepped up and helped the panel stay lively 🙂 He is a very funny guy btw. And then…Jerry appeared on the stage to the adulation of the crowd (applause and standing ovation no less) which poor Mike endured semi well 😉 I really have to give props to Jerry for showing up to the con after his wife gave birth to his baby. Just…I’m not sure I’d make it in (of course I’d be the one doing all the pushing so go figure why 😉 )

Btw the stalker girl follow these guy and the Rooster Teeth guys (the second panel I attended) was waaaaay creepy. I find it strange people go out of their way to be creepy like that. Just…odd to me. Back to RT it was nice to see that they are branching out of just the RvB stuff and getting a look at it I liked what I saw. And was funny watching a panel of guys all wearing shirts that spelled out Bb On Nn Ee Rr. If you don’t get it, stop now 🙂

Let’s fast forward to the good stuff. Exhibit Hall? OMFG!! *squeals with gamer girl delight* Walking into the hall was like taking a kid to a candy store and telling the kid to have a sample of everything and don’t worry you can touch anything you want. Oh the sweet gamer goodness. This is where I got overwhelmed. I will give a full review of what I took in for Part 2 of the post.

Seriously, it was SOOO much to take in. My biggest regret is only having one day to try and do it all. One day just isn’t enough time in that Exhibit Hall. And never mind that I totally missed Friday’s concert MC Frontalot OR Wil Wheaton’s panel. *sighs* So much to do and see and no time (or badge really).